This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art, which may be related to various aspects of the present invention that are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In today's data communication systems such as used in satellite TV, data of different types often reside in what are known as virtual channels. The data from these virtual channels is separately disassembled into data packets, aggregated within and across different data types into bit streams and conveyed by packet delivery systems. Data consumer appliances, such as satellite receivers, select from physical channels available to them, convert the signals on these channels to digital form (packets) and collect the data packets required to re-assemble the desired virtual channels of information (e.g., audio, video, program guide, transactional data, etc.). At different points along the data path between a content provider and a content consumer data management opportunities occur. A piece of data may come from one of many sources, be routed through one of many satellites, pass through several of many transponders aboard the satellite, be received by a consumer antenna, and be distributed to places of consumption.
Consumer receivers are often capable of receiving only one of the physical channels from the satellite at a time for display. However, new receivers may contain advanced features the consumer can use. For instance, a receiving device may contain more than one tuner for use in either two picture simultaneous display systems or content recording. Additionally, consumer households often include multiple receivers, each receiver requiring the tuning of one or more channels for use.
The ever-expanding amount of content for delivery has made it very difficult to deliver that content to all places at all times. Systems receiving data from up to four separate satellites to deliver programming is to the home can no longer deliver all of the content on one coaxial cable connection. Various approaches have been adapted including the use of multiple cables or complex switching arrangements. Many of these approaches are in some manner suboptimal for a home installation due to high cost or high complexity.
Another solution may be to employ a system of preselecting, combining, and redistributing the incoming content based on the physical channels requested by the user(s) using analog signal processing. As a result, only the content required for delivery to the receivers in a household are selected from the initial available content. The desired content may then be provided on a single cable that is relatively easy to distribute around the household. The solution relies on coarse analog signal tuning and re-mixing to move channels or frequency regions of signals from an original spectral location in frequency at the input to another spectral location in frequency on a common signal at the output. Further, channels or signal regions at the same frequency but on different satellites may be combined by moving one or both of the original channels or regions. These relocated signals containing the desired channels are then provided on the single cable, eliminating the need for any additional switching and multiple cable connections.
The analog solution involving preselection, combination, and redistribution remains limited in the number of channels that can be provided due to the inherent shortcomings of performing the processing in the analog domain. Narrow band filters used to select individual physical channels while rejecting others are impractical at frequencies above the range of one gigahertz (GHz). Available filters having a practical bandwidth require additional channel separation in order to prevent undesired interferences in the output signal. Additionally as the desire to deliver more requested channels to the home increases, the subsequent increase in analog circuit complexity results in an expensive and inefficient design with potential problems due to analog crosstalk. Further, the analog solution does not include additional capabilities involving channel data re-mulitplexing that may prove useful. The ability to manipulate the data streams in the digital domain increases the value and feature set of the network. Therefore, an apparatus and process for receiving and re-synthesizing of channels for distribution in a more optimal manner is desired.